12 ms·

The Wrong Way to Treat Child Geniuses

128 points by wallflower 12y ago

j2kun 12y ago
> Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person. He saved the best quote for the end.
kenjackson 12y ago
This is a really good article. And the author is right that it is so easy to feel like you should quit doing math or physics or CS, because you see that person who is your age, that just seems better at it than you are. What I have found really humbling in life is how many people have accomplished so much more than I have, without my background. And if you look at the resumes of folks like David Cutler, Linus Torvalds, Ed Witten, etc... these folks didn't rise up through Olympiad events with the genius label their whole life. I know this is cliché, but it really does seem like building determination and excitement is at least as important than simply pouring skills in child geniuses.
- wting 12y ago
  I don't have the citations on hand, but someone looked into the breakthroughs scientists discovered in their 20's and those in later stages of their career. The types of papers published from younger scientists (Einstein, Newton) were more abstract, while those published from the older generation were those that could only be realized from decades of hard work.
tokenadult 12y ago
A very good Saturday essay that two of my Facebook friends told me about, and I'm glad to see that it was already submitted here, as it deserves a read from all of us who have ever commented in threads about "genius" or "geniuses." And the first two comments here, by kenjackson and j2kun, are very good too. What Jordan Ellenberg, a member of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, writes about here is based on the extensive modern research on the development of advanced young learners of mathematics and other subjects. I recently heard a talk about this line of research by David Lubinski[1] (mentioned in the article) and I have been following this research[2] for years. Summing up the research, yes, it's good to be supportive rather than oppositional to children developing their special talents in their youth. But the most talented young people will not save the world. We will save the world together through lots of incremental improvements, the kind of incremental improvements we discuss here on Hacker News. Personality traits (one could also say qualities of character) like curiosity and persistence matter quite as much as raw brain power in allowing young people to gain the best development from having good learning opportunities, and good learning opportunities are important for all learners. [1] [vid] http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408cbf4afd7a248d0ced1d http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408... [2] Related articles: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/ https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/
nnq 12y ago
I'd like one message to come across to all child-prodigies and precocious geniuses: You're not a "rare natural resource", "human capital" or any other such demeaning term. You're not responsible for solving ANY of the world's problems: you don't have to cure cancer or AIDS, you don't have to extinguish poverty, you don't have to solve the energy crisis. It's jut not your problem if you don't WANT it to be. Do what YOU ENJOY and LIKE, forget about other people's problems, forget even about the problems of your future selves! And do take advantage of you "special" or "celebrity" status, use it to get money and any unfair benefits you can get and waste them having fun. You're human beings and you are only supposed to live for your own enjoyment! If you enjoy helping others or solving the world's problems, do so. If not, fuck it all and just have fun!
- jessriedel 12y ago
  > You're human beings and you are only supposed to live for your own enjoyment! How does what you're advocating differ from pure selfishness (perhaps restricted by the requirements to not to hurt others)?
  - habosa 12y ago
    Just to play devil's advocate here, most people actually do enjoy helping others. If you're the rare person that doesn't like helping other people at all, then it's probably a waste of my effort to try to make you. So "do what you like to do" != "be selfish" in all cases.
    - jessriedel 12y ago
      So the advice is "help people whenever you feel like it"?
      - skj 12y ago
        Sounds like good advice.
  - mindcrime 12y ago
cperciva 12y ago
Good article. A few minor points: [prodigies] are not given a lot of opportunities in schools that are designed for typically developing kids ... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Those of us who managed sky-high SAT scores at 13 were 20 times as likely as the average American to get a doctorate; let's say, being charitable, that we're 100 times as likely to make a significant scientific advance. Since we're only 1 in 10,000 of the U.S. population, that still leaves 99% of scientific advances to be made by all those other kids who didn't get an early ticket to the genius club. We geniuses aren't going to solve all the riddles. Most child prodigies are highly successful — but most highly successful people weren't child prodigies. This is probably the most important paragraph in the article. The numbers are unsupported, but I don't think they're so far off as to invalidate the point. It isn't exactly wrong to say that Terry Tao and other former prodigies like him are geniuses. But it is more accurate to say that what they accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person. Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with such a piece of pithy nonsense.
- swampthing 12y ago
  ... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Not to derail from the article's point too much, but there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth - although they are not everywhere (sounds like there were none wherever you grew up). I know of one high school where a large number of students write the Putnam. I think it is important to have these schools / programs because pursuing opportunities outside of school is not always possible / easy for disadvantaged youth.
dfan 12y ago
Some followup conversation in the comments at Ellenberg's blog: http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-andrew-gelman-have-stayed-a-math-major/ http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-andrew-...
bane 12y ago
I commented briefly here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507 But this really hit home for me > One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless you're the best at math—because those special few are the only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat any other subject that way. I've never heard a student say, "I like 'Hamlet,' but I don't really belong in AP English—that child who sits in the front row knows half the plays by heart, and he started reading Shakespeare when he was 7!" Basketball players don't quit just because one of their teammates outshines them. But I see promising young mathematicians quit every year because someone in their range of vision is "ahead" of them. Being identified as a child genius puts you into the unfortunate default circumstance of always competing with everybody, instead of just competing with yourself like you are supposed to do when learning and growing. You are supposed to be uniquely smart, and when other kids do something better than you you start to question yourself. Importantly, well meaning educators try to foster the areas you test as exceptionally gifted in, when what they should be doing is teaching you how to work through and overcome areas you are weaker in -- to achieve a better cognitive balance. This can help the child break the "curse of being gifted", where effortless achievement in one area becomes a kind of short-loop positive feedback drug they focus all of their attention on and harder/less obvious areas are ignored much to later detriment. But it's almost never done, because it's assumed that since you're gifted in one area you're gifted in them all and they'll just focus on the ones you test the highest in. You've been given a magical spark, and they want to capture that spark. The cruel irony is that quite often, the harder they work to grab it, the faster it goes away. I think one of the problems is that many of the educators responsible for guiding exceptionally gifted children through all this were not themselves exceptionally gifted and have a poor understanding and empathy for what it's like to walk around with all this, often very uneven, nascent intelligence. I see from many of the comments here that other really bright kids were put in competitive environments where scores and placements became a big focus of their lives: SAT scores, Putnam, IQ scores...I'm sure most of us also did state or regional competitions of some sort or another. The most important thing I learned from all that when I was going through it was that "there's always somebody better than you so don't get all emotional when you have the bad fortune to cross paths with them in the same competition." Actually, the better lesson I learned was to not bother competing at all and just focus one challenging myself. I'm already in the top 1-2% in whatever narrow subject area according to some test, without any effort, why don't I achieve competency in something I outright suck at? If I'm so smart, I should be able to figure out how to attack and surmount any weakness I have. I think that little philosophy has gotten me much farther than any of the areas I was identified as being gifted in as a child.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wpietri 12y ago
His point on grit really hits home for me. As a kid, I was always in the 99th percentile of any standardized test. People complimented me on being smart, but smart isn't something you can control, so I learned tricks to maximize how smart I appeared. That included jumping in to anything that came naturally to me and avoiding anything else. I basically never learned to work at anything, to endure frustration, to sit with failure and get past it. People meant well, I agree with the author: the common notion of genius as something innate and magical is toxic. By all means, make sure kids are properly challenged. But we should do it for every kid.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Absolutely agree with this. As a formerly precocious child, I'm still trying to recover from quitting everything that din't come easily to me.
  - lispylol 12y ago
    The onset of frustration comes so much more quickly if you expect yourself NOT to be frustrated.
- wting 12y ago
  > People complimented me on being smart, but smart isn't something you can control, so I learned tricks to maximize how smart I appeared. That included jumping in to anything that came naturally to me and avoiding anything else. I basically never learned to work at anything, to endure frustration, to sit with failure and get past it. This is a pretty common mistake made by parents and teachers during child development: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index1.html http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index1.html
  - wpietri 12y ago
    Great article. This bit is especially interesting: “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”
randunel 12y ago
Still hate websites which break the back button... good article otherwise.
randunel 12y ago
Still hate websites which break the back button...
brandonhsiao 12y ago
I feel the biggest thing differentiating child geniuses is that they get things done on their own without being told to. They'll explore the world, they'll naturally have a thirst for learning, etc. The worst thing you can do to a kid like that is to give them the kind of "guidance" you give normal children. They're fine on their own; it's pushing them into a structure that screws them. But often the programs designed to coach genius children think of coaching as the kind of help you'd give normal children. I find it interesting that society thinks it's important to "guide" genius children. A question I'd like to ask is: what exactly do these children lack that we need to compensate with guidance? Children who get things done on their own just need space.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  I don't agree with this at all. Having a high level of intellect doesn't mean one has the worldly experience to navigate life's obstacles. These children, intelligent as they are, are still children, and impressionable by adults especially when they are young. All it takes is a few years in the early period of development for a budding genius' potential to be clamped. There are many reasons so many end up not doing well. I don't mean by merely the financial measure as noted elsewhere in this thread, but across the board, in that they end up not fulfilling their potential to achieve great things. For some the biggest contributing factor is having one of many different kinds of negative parental and adult influences at an early age.
burnte 12y ago
I think this is a horrible article. His central argument is that the kids who demonstrate exceptional intelligence have too much attention heaped upon them, and discards the argument that in fact out school system fails these kids. While I agree in part that it is easy to put too much pressure on these kids by talking about their "potential" too much and pressuring them in directions they may not actually want to go, the answer is not to simply treat them as average. He was part of the Vanderbilt University study of kids who score at least 700 on the verbal part of the SAT, or 630 in math, by age 13. I was part of the Johns Hopkins program, which is now the Center for Talented Youth which has similar requirements. he scored 800 on the math portion, 680 on verbal at age 12. I scored 800 on the verbal and 530 on the math at 12. He's a tenured math professor and published author. I'm an IT consultant of 20 years and a published author. I think I'm just as qualified to speak on behalf of this group as he is. Those kids are under-served by the school system to the point of failure or near failure.He's completely right, talent isn't a number, but that number is indicative on an innate skill for knowledge assimilation and synthesis that is greater than average. Given the proper scholastic environment, these kids ARE capable of more than most, and should be allowed to find their niche just as much as the majority. The problem, in my opinion, isn't that the school system is too rigidly skewed towards the majority, or that there are bad teachers. On the contrary, throughout my school career I've had a number of exceptional teachers that I still admire, respect, and cherish my time with, even the ones with whom I didn't necessarily get along with well (I was a jackass at times). The school system had always seemed to me to be too cookie-cutter oriented, and was very difficult for anyone who didn't fit the mold. I didn't fully understand why until about 10 years ago when I read an article and then a book by John Taylor Gotto. The article is "The Six Lesson Schoolhouse". http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html is the article. The book is "Dumbing Us Down" for sale here: http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Anniversary/dp/0865714487 http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Ann... or at any good library. The problem is the way the school system itself is structured. In the US, we're utilizing a school system that was designed 150 years ago and hasn't changed much since. We created this "modern" system during the industrial revolution's sweep across America. As machines made farming orders of magnitude more efficient, cities grew at an astounding rate, and industrial jobs became the dominant employment sector. The need for rigorous schedules became the norm with time zones and train schedules, and later with the whistles and bells of assembly line manufacturing. Strict scheduling in schools helped acclimate kids to the forthcoming work environment. It was a great thing, and helped build a strong and well educated workforce. As times changed, however, schools didn't. We acclimated to special needs kids with attention or learning disorders, which is fantastic because we're able to take these kids, and get then up to the level of their average counterparts, and make them into productive members of society rather than ignoring and shunning them. But we don't do nearly enough for the small fraction who are highly gifted. We simply put them into "harder" or "higher level" classes than their peers. This isn't an acceptable solution. We need to stimulate them, to find out where their passions lie then feed them accordingly. Do they react better to lectures, or readings? Do they react better to more solitary studies, or in group environments? Do they need a standard amount of repetition to help boost retention, or does that simply bore them and artificially stunt their natural abilities? Mr. Ellenberg is right that pressure is not the proper tool to make the most of these young minds, but neither is pretending they're not exceptional, and not giving them the opportunity to see exactly how far they can go.
hitchhiker999 12y ago
Like quite a few on this site, I'm one of those kids. I have a kid now, he's not going to be sent to a regular school. I wasted about 30 years trying to work out what/how other people were thinking. School wasn't a challenge, everyone in it was - so I initially focused on that. They'll spend time trying not to offend people. (I really like people, and want them to like me). It's really tiring and difficult to maintain a persona that's compatible with the crowd. Is it even right to do that? The smarter you are, the less people listen to the 'true' you (boring, being annoying etc). My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet spot. They need a framework to cope with the entire inefficiency of everything in society, and the apparent willingness of everyone around them to perpetuate it. They need to learn to let people they love be, even if it appears they are walking off a cliff. That sucks. Being smart is wonderful but it's not everything. It means things are easily understandable to you. It doesn't mean you know everything, but it means you can learn almost anything quickly. If you want a PHD you can get one easily, it's like when you're really rich - things have a different meaning. Many smart people I know don't care about things like 'PHDs' - infact, quite the opposite. Friends and family matter, not PHDs. TL;DR; IQ is one over-sold metric; teach your kids to be happy first.
- thaumasiotes 12y ago
  > My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet spot. As phrased, this is completely meaningless. What are you thinking of here? You think people are best off at the 80th percentile?
  - wting 12y ago
    There are diminishing returns for being more than one or two standard deviations of intelligence above average IQ.
    - hitchhiker999 12y ago
      Yep. At least as far as being compatible with the rest of humanity. Or you could be the 'lucky' one who gets carted around as some genius for 'all to see' ie: Unless you want to sit in a cave and wire yourself to a computer, an IQ in the top .00001% is useless for being happy on Earth.
WalterBright 12y ago
I always wondered what happened to the child prodigies after they grew up.
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  50th percentile outcome is mediocrity, depression, booze. This isn't gloating at their expense, because I was one. This is a fucked-up society and the "tallest nail" phenomenon ensures that most people like them eventually reach a stage of life where they don't do well, and it's harder to recover once that "golden child" image (untarnished success, monotonic progress) is lost and the world would rather invest in someone else.
  - lacker 12y ago
    No way dude. 50th percentile has to be better than that. Go look up what happened to your fellow moppers.
    - michaelochurch 12y ago
      Is it? I'd love to see some real data on this. For sure, some have succeeded. But there have been a lot who've not done much (especially in academia, which seems to tolerate laziness if you're smart). Outside of academia, one who I know pretty well (he actually went to IMO, not just MOP) was no-offered at two different hedge funds because of the "tallest nail" phenomenon. When people found out that he'd attended IMO, there was a certain glee with which his co-workers (at least, in one of those two firms) made sure that he failed. After that, he was pretty much unhireable.
NAFV_P 12y ago
Neurologists who study the brain's wiring are just as fascinated by the missile guidance system that top table tennis players have behind their eyes just as much as world class chess players.
doctorKrieger 12y ago
call me cynical but the only thing I expected when going to the comment section was lament of people perceiving themselves as prodiges, and people talking about smart people they know which focus on family.
boggled 12y ago
The author laments the rate at which lesser math students leave mathematics, because they are behind the very best. One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless you're the best at math—because those special few are the only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat any other subject that way. ... But I see promising young mathematicians quit every year because someone in their range of vision is "ahead" of them. But this is a rational calculation, precisely because mathematics is institutionalized as a highly competitive discipline. If those who score high on the SAT at 13 are 100 times as likely to make a scientific advance as those in the remaining 99% of the population, then there should to be roughly 100 times the opportunity for lower scoring individuals to make those advances than they currently have. But the jobs in academia aren't there. Students see this and they make the rational decision to jump ship. (I was irrational and did not.) The cult tells students that there are no jobs for you unless you are the very best. And with fewer tenure track jobs in a dwindling, pedigree conscious market, the cult is correct. Grothendieck couldn't solve a Putnam problem, incidentally. Not a contest winner. You might be interested to know what some Fields Medalists say about some prominent prodigies. That they are extremely smart, but haven't done truly major work. The facts and the gossip are no consolation: academic opportunities are overwhelmingly and increasingly weighted in favor of the prodigy. Likewise, elite employers want to hire the math and programming contest winners. Well, if you're not one of them, it is rational to select yourself out. I've gotten calls from recruiters saying that I'd be working such winning individuals. "Will I be doing the work they're doing?" "Uh, no, you'll be doing system administration." "In that case, maybe you should hire a Nobel Laureate. I am unworthy." Cleaning the digital bedpans of the superstars is not my idea of success. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," as one famous antagonist put it. As long as the STEM subjects remain a zero-sum game, with the overwhelming spoils going to the early bloomers, the winners, like the author, should be satisfied with what they have already won in an unnecessarily and destructively competitive field. The rest of us are doomed to provide them support as members of the economic precariat at slave wages, if we are foolhardy enough to remain in academia. There is no honor in adding to someone else's power law distribution, and I urge the contest winners to hire Nobel Laureates and other members of their own rank to do their support work, and not add to their winnings by exploiting the unworthy persons they elbowed out. (I did earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, incidentally. This was wasted effort. When I was a toddler, apparently I impressed a child psychologist with my logic; my mother told the woman that she was an idiot for thinking that I was advanced. My experience in academia was not good--I was mostly exploited. I have decided to abandon mathematics and computer science for art.)
alanning 12y ago
Has anyone here who is gifted with this level of ability looked into or experienced a Montessori-style education? Perhaps for your children? My two young children are currently enrolled in a Montessori school and I can draw a lot of parallels between what the many gifted commenters here suggest as a better way to teach and my understanding of the Montessori philosophy. Emphasis on engendering self-directed learning, freedom to explore their interests, avoidance of intelligence labels/praise such as "you're so smart", etc.
rumcajz 12y ago
What's the point on focusing on children with high test scores? If that's what makes genius, the geniuses could -- and should -- be replaced by computers. What makes a real genius is absolute honesty, willingness to re-evaluate their core assumptions over and over again, not get deluded by ruling dogma etc. Being able to multiply five digit numbers doesn't help with that.
rumcajz 12y ago
What's the point on focusing on children with high test scores? If that's what makes genius, the geniuses could -- and should -- be replaced by computers. What makes a real genius is absolute honesty, willingness to re-evaluate their core assumptions over and over again, not get deluded by ruling dogma etc. Being able to multiply five digit numbers doesn't help with that.
kevinwang 12y ago
Interesting article... but what really makes a prodigy? What's the difference between a prodigy and a normal kid? Is it just a keener sense of curiosity, or a greater interest in reading? Is it neurological? Is it environmental or genetic or something else?

128 points by wallflower 12y ago

j2kun 12y ago

> Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person. He saved the best quote for the end.

This is a really good article. And the author is right that it is so easy to feel like you should quit doing math or physics or CS, because you see that person who is your age, that just seems better at it than you are. What I have found really humbling in life is how many people have accomplished so much more than I have, without my background. And if you look at the resumes of folks like David Cutler, Linus Torvalds, Ed Witten, etc... these folks didn't rise up through Olympiad events with the genius label their whole life. I know this is cliché, but it really does seem like building determination and excitement is at least as important than simply pouring skills in child geniuses.

wting 12y ago
I don't have the citations on hand, but someone looked into the breakthroughs scientists discovered in their 20's and those in later stages of their career. The types of papers published from younger scientists (Einstein, Newton) were more abstract, while those published from the older generation were those that could only be realized from decades of hard work.

tokenadult 12y ago

A very good Saturday essay that two of my Facebook friends told me about, and I'm glad to see that it was already submitted here, as it deserves a read from all of us who have ever commented in threads about "genius" or "geniuses." And the first two comments here, by kenjackson and j2kun, are very good too. What Jordan Ellenberg, a member of the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth, writes about here is based on the extensive modern research on the development of advanced young learners of mathematics and other subjects. I recently heard a talk about this line of research by David Lubinski[1] (mentioned in the article) and I have been following this research[2] for years. Summing up the research, yes, it's good to be supportive rather than oppositional to children developing their special talents in their youth. But the most talented young people will not save the world. We will save the world together through lots of incremental improvements, the kind of incremental improvements we discuss here on Hacker News. Personality traits (one could also say qualities of character) like curiosity and persistence matter quite as much as raw brain power in allowing young people to gain the best development from having good learning opportunities, and good learning opportunities are important for all learners. [1] [vid] http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408cbf4afd7a248d0ced1d http://mediasite.csom.umn.edu/Mediasite/Play/2eeb0fa1c5f6408... [2] Related articles: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/ https://my.vanderbilt.edu/smpy/publications/david-lubinski/

nnq 12y ago

I'd like one message to come across to all child-prodigies and precocious geniuses: You're not a "rare natural resource", "human capital" or any other such demeaning term. You're not responsible for solving ANY of the world's problems: you don't have to cure cancer or AIDS, you don't have to extinguish poverty, you don't have to solve the energy crisis. It's jut not your problem if you don't WANT it to be. Do what YOU ENJOY and LIKE, forget about other people's problems, forget even about the problems of your future selves! And do take advantage of you "special" or "celebrity" status, use it to get money and any unfair benefits you can get and waste them having fun. You're human beings and you are only supposed to live for your own enjoyment! If you enjoy helping others or solving the world's problems, do so. If not, fuck it all and just have fun!

jessriedel 12y ago
> You're human beings and you are only supposed to live for your own enjoyment! How does what you're advocating differ from pure selfishness (perhaps restricted by the requirements to not to hurt others)?
- habosa 12y ago
  Just to play devil's advocate here, most people actually do enjoy helping others. If you're the rare person that doesn't like helping other people at all, then it's probably a waste of my effort to try to make you. So "do what you like to do" != "be selfish" in all cases.
  - jessriedel 12y ago
    So the advice is "help people whenever you feel like it"?
    - skj 12y ago
      Sounds like good advice.
- mindcrime 12y ago

cperciva 12y ago

Good article. A few minor points: [prodigies] are not given a lot of opportunities in schools that are designed for typically developing kids ... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Those of us who managed sky-high SAT scores at 13 were 20 times as likely as the average American to get a doctorate; let's say, being charitable, that we're 100 times as likely to make a significant scientific advance. Since we're only 1 in 10,000 of the U.S. population, that still leaves 99% of scientific advances to be made by all those other kids who didn't get an early ticket to the genius club. We geniuses aren't going to solve all the riddles. Most child prodigies are highly successful — but most highly successful people weren't child prodigies. This is probably the most important paragraph in the article. The numbers are unsupported, but I don't think they're so far off as to invalidate the point. It isn't exactly wrong to say that Terry Tao and other former prodigies like him are geniuses. But it is more accurate to say that what they accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person. Genius is both a noun and an adjective describing some people. It's a shame that Dr. Ellenberg felt it necessary to end an otherwise good article with such a piece of pithy nonsense.

swampthing 12y ago
... nor should they be. I was learning calculus in elementary school and writing the Putnam in high school. No matter how hard they tried, there's no way the schools I was enrolled in could have given me those opportunities. What prodigies need it not opportunities in school, but rather schools which are flexible enough to let them access opportunities outside of school -- in my case, starting my days at Simon Fraser University and packing my high school courses into the afternoon. Not to derail from the article's point too much, but there are schools / programs specifically for talented youth - although they are not everywhere (sounds like there were none wherever you grew up). I know of one high school where a large number of students write the Putnam. I think it is important to have these schools / programs because pursuing opportunities outside of school is not always possible / easy for disadvantaged youth.

dfan 12y ago

Some followup conversation in the comments at Ellenberg's blog: http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-andrew-gelman-have-stayed-a-math-major/ http://quomodocumque.wordpress.com/2014/05/30/should-andrew-...

bane 12y ago

I commented briefly here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7830507 But this really hit home for me > One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless you're the best at math—because those special few are the only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat any other subject that way. I've never heard a student say, "I like 'Hamlet,' but I don't really belong in AP English—that child who sits in the front row knows half the plays by heart, and he started reading Shakespeare when he was 7!" Basketball players don't quit just because one of their teammates outshines them. But I see promising young mathematicians quit every year because someone in their range of vision is "ahead" of them. Being identified as a child genius puts you into the unfortunate default circumstance of always competing with everybody, instead of just competing with yourself like you are supposed to do when learning and growing. You are supposed to be uniquely smart, and when other kids do something better than you you start to question yourself. Importantly, well meaning educators try to foster the areas you test as exceptionally gifted in, when what they should be doing is teaching you how to work through and overcome areas you are weaker in -- to achieve a better cognitive balance. This can help the child break the "curse of being gifted", where effortless achievement in one area becomes a kind of short-loop positive feedback drug they focus all of their attention on and harder/less obvious areas are ignored much to later detriment. But it's almost never done, because it's assumed that since you're gifted in one area you're gifted in them all and they'll just focus on the ones you test the highest in. You've been given a magical spark, and they want to capture that spark. The cruel irony is that quite often, the harder they work to grab it, the faster it goes away. I think one of the problems is that many of the educators responsible for guiding exceptionally gifted children through all this were not themselves exceptionally gifted and have a poor understanding and empathy for what it's like to walk around with all this, often very uneven, nascent intelligence. I see from many of the comments here that other really bright kids were put in competitive environments where scores and placements became a big focus of their lives: SAT scores, Putnam, IQ scores...I'm sure most of us also did state or regional competitions of some sort or another. The most important thing I learned from all that when I was going through it was that "there's always somebody better than you so don't get all emotional when you have the bad fortune to cross paths with them in the same competition." Actually, the better lesson I learned was to not bother competing at all and just focus one challenging myself. I'm already in the top 1-2% in whatever narrow subject area according to some test, without any effort, why don't I achieve competency in something I outright suck at? If I'm so smart, I should be able to figure out how to attack and surmount any weakness I have. I think that little philosophy has gotten me much farther than any of the areas I was identified as being gifted in as a child.

deleted 12y ago

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wpietri 12y ago

His point on grit really hits home for me. As a kid, I was always in the 99th percentile of any standardized test. People complimented me on being smart, but smart isn't something you can control, so I learned tricks to maximize how smart I appeared. That included jumping in to anything that came naturally to me and avoiding anything else. I basically never learned to work at anything, to endure frustration, to sit with failure and get past it. People meant well, I agree with the author: the common notion of genius as something innate and magical is toxic. By all means, make sure kids are properly challenged. But we should do it for every kid.

ForHackernews 12y ago
Absolutely agree with this. As a formerly precocious child, I'm still trying to recover from quitting everything that din't come easily to me.
- lispylol 12y ago
  The onset of frustration comes so much more quickly if you expect yourself NOT to be frustrated.
wting 12y ago
> People complimented me on being smart, but smart isn't something you can control, so I learned tricks to maximize how smart I appeared. That included jumping in to anything that came naturally to me and avoiding anything else. I basically never learned to work at anything, to endure frustration, to sit with failure and get past it. This is a pretty common mistake made by parents and teachers during child development: http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index1.html http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/index1.html
- wpietri 12y ago
  Great article. This bit is especially interesting: “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. “A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

randunel 12y ago

Still hate websites which break the back button... good article otherwise.

randunel 12y ago

Still hate websites which break the back button...

brandonhsiao 12y ago

I feel the biggest thing differentiating child geniuses is that they get things done on their own without being told to. They'll explore the world, they'll naturally have a thirst for learning, etc. The worst thing you can do to a kid like that is to give them the kind of "guidance" you give normal children. They're fine on their own; it's pushing them into a structure that screws them. But often the programs designed to coach genius children think of coaching as the kind of help you'd give normal children. I find it interesting that society thinks it's important to "guide" genius children. A question I'd like to ask is: what exactly do these children lack that we need to compensate with guidance? Children who get things done on their own just need space.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago
I don't agree with this at all. Having a high level of intellect doesn't mean one has the worldly experience to navigate life's obstacles. These children, intelligent as they are, are still children, and impressionable by adults especially when they are young. All it takes is a few years in the early period of development for a budding genius' potential to be clamped. There are many reasons so many end up not doing well. I don't mean by merely the financial measure as noted elsewhere in this thread, but across the board, in that they end up not fulfilling their potential to achieve great things. For some the biggest contributing factor is having one of many different kinds of negative parental and adult influences at an early age.

burnte 12y ago

I think this is a horrible article. His central argument is that the kids who demonstrate exceptional intelligence have too much attention heaped upon them, and discards the argument that in fact out school system fails these kids. While I agree in part that it is easy to put too much pressure on these kids by talking about their "potential" too much and pressuring them in directions they may not actually want to go, the answer is not to simply treat them as average. He was part of the Vanderbilt University study of kids who score at least 700 on the verbal part of the SAT, or 630 in math, by age 13. I was part of the Johns Hopkins program, which is now the Center for Talented Youth which has similar requirements. he scored 800 on the math portion, 680 on verbal at age 12. I scored 800 on the verbal and 530 on the math at 12. He's a tenured math professor and published author. I'm an IT consultant of 20 years and a published author. I think I'm just as qualified to speak on behalf of this group as he is. Those kids are under-served by the school system to the point of failure or near failure.He's completely right, talent isn't a number, but that number is indicative on an innate skill for knowledge assimilation and synthesis that is greater than average. Given the proper scholastic environment, these kids ARE capable of more than most, and should be allowed to find their niche just as much as the majority. The problem, in my opinion, isn't that the school system is too rigidly skewed towards the majority, or that there are bad teachers. On the contrary, throughout my school career I've had a number of exceptional teachers that I still admire, respect, and cherish my time with, even the ones with whom I didn't necessarily get along with well (I was a jackass at times). The school system had always seemed to me to be too cookie-cutter oriented, and was very difficult for anyone who didn't fit the mold. I didn't fully understand why until about 10 years ago when I read an article and then a book by John Taylor Gotto. The article is "The Six Lesson Schoolhouse". http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html http://www.cantrip.org/gatto.html is the article. The book is "Dumbing Us Down" for sale here: http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Anniversary/dp/0865714487 http://www.amazon.com/Dumbing-Down-Curriculum-Compulsory-Ann... or at any good library. The problem is the way the school system itself is structured. In the US, we're utilizing a school system that was designed 150 years ago and hasn't changed much since. We created this "modern" system during the industrial revolution's sweep across America. As machines made farming orders of magnitude more efficient, cities grew at an astounding rate, and industrial jobs became the dominant employment sector. The need for rigorous schedules became the norm with time zones and train schedules, and later with the whistles and bells of assembly line manufacturing. Strict scheduling in schools helped acclimate kids to the forthcoming work environment. It was a great thing, and helped build a strong and well educated workforce. As times changed, however, schools didn't. We acclimated to special needs kids with attention or learning disorders, which is fantastic because we're able to take these kids, and get then up to the level of their average counterparts, and make them into productive members of society rather than ignoring and shunning them. But we don't do nearly enough for the small fraction who are highly gifted. We simply put them into "harder" or "higher level" classes than their peers. This isn't an acceptable solution. We need to stimulate them, to find out where their passions lie then feed them accordingly. Do they react better to lectures, or readings? Do they react better to more solitary studies, or in group environments? Do they need a standard amount of repetition to help boost retention, or does that simply bore them and artificially stunt their natural abilities? Mr. Ellenberg is right that pressure is not the proper tool to make the most of these young minds, but neither is pretending they're not exceptional, and not giving them the opportunity to see exactly how far they can go.

hitchhiker999 12y ago

Like quite a few on this site, I'm one of those kids. I have a kid now, he's not going to be sent to a regular school. I wasted about 30 years trying to work out what/how other people were thinking. School wasn't a challenge, everyone in it was - so I initially focused on that. They'll spend time trying not to offend people. (I really like people, and want them to like me). It's really tiring and difficult to maintain a persona that's compatible with the crowd. Is it even right to do that? The smarter you are, the less people listen to the 'true' you (boring, being annoying etc). My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet spot. They need a framework to cope with the entire inefficiency of everything in society, and the apparent willingness of everyone around them to perpetuate it. They need to learn to let people they love be, even if it appears they are walking off a cliff. That sucks. Being smart is wonderful but it's not everything. It means things are easily understandable to you. It doesn't mean you know everything, but it means you can learn almost anything quickly. If you want a PHD you can get one easily, it's like when you're really rich - things have a different meaning. Many smart people I know don't care about things like 'PHDs' - infact, quite the opposite. Friends and family matter, not PHDs. TL;DR; IQ is one over-sold metric; teach your kids to be happy first.

thaumasiotes 12y ago
> My guess is being around 30% smarter than average is the sweet spot. As phrased, this is completely meaningless. What are you thinking of here? You think people are best off at the 80th percentile?
- wting 12y ago
  There are diminishing returns for being more than one or two standard deviations of intelligence above average IQ.
  - hitchhiker999 12y ago
    Yep. At least as far as being compatible with the rest of humanity. Or you could be the 'lucky' one who gets carted around as some genius for 'all to see' ie: Unless you want to sit in a cave and wire yourself to a computer, an IQ in the top .00001% is useless for being happy on Earth.

WalterBright 12y ago

I always wondered what happened to the child prodigies after they grew up.

michaelochurch 12y ago
50th percentile outcome is mediocrity, depression, booze. This isn't gloating at their expense, because I was one. This is a fucked-up society and the "tallest nail" phenomenon ensures that most people like them eventually reach a stage of life where they don't do well, and it's harder to recover once that "golden child" image (untarnished success, monotonic progress) is lost and the world would rather invest in someone else.
- lacker 12y ago
  No way dude. 50th percentile has to be better than that. Go look up what happened to your fellow moppers.
  - michaelochurch 12y ago
    Is it? I'd love to see some real data on this. For sure, some have succeeded. But there have been a lot who've not done much (especially in academia, which seems to tolerate laziness if you're smart). Outside of academia, one who I know pretty well (he actually went to IMO, not just MOP) was no-offered at two different hedge funds because of the "tallest nail" phenomenon. When people found out that he'd attended IMO, there was a certain glee with which his co-workers (at least, in one of those two firms) made sure that he failed. After that, he was pretty much unhireable.

NAFV_P 12y ago

Neurologists who study the brain's wiring are just as fascinated by the missile guidance system that top table tennis players have behind their eyes just as much as world class chess players.

doctorKrieger 12y ago

call me cynical but the only thing I expected when going to the comment section was lament of people perceiving themselves as prodiges, and people talking about smart people they know which focus on family.

boggled 12y ago

The author laments the rate at which lesser math students leave mathematics, because they are behind the very best. One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless you're the best at math—because those special few are the only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat any other subject that way. ... But I see promising young mathematicians quit every year because someone in their range of vision is "ahead" of them. But this is a rational calculation, precisely because mathematics is institutionalized as a highly competitive discipline. If those who score high on the SAT at 13 are 100 times as likely to make a scientific advance as those in the remaining 99% of the population, then there should to be roughly 100 times the opportunity for lower scoring individuals to make those advances than they currently have. But the jobs in academia aren't there. Students see this and they make the rational decision to jump ship. (I was irrational and did not.) The cult tells students that there are no jobs for you unless you are the very best. And with fewer tenure track jobs in a dwindling, pedigree conscious market, the cult is correct. Grothendieck couldn't solve a Putnam problem, incidentally. Not a contest winner. You might be interested to know what some Fields Medalists say about some prominent prodigies. That they are extremely smart, but haven't done truly major work. The facts and the gossip are no consolation: academic opportunities are overwhelmingly and increasingly weighted in favor of the prodigy. Likewise, elite employers want to hire the math and programming contest winners. Well, if you're not one of them, it is rational to select yourself out. I've gotten calls from recruiters saying that I'd be working such winning individuals. "Will I be doing the work they're doing?" "Uh, no, you'll be doing system administration." "In that case, maybe you should hire a Nobel Laureate. I am unworthy." Cleaning the digital bedpans of the superstars is not my idea of success. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," as one famous antagonist put it. As long as the STEM subjects remain a zero-sum game, with the overwhelming spoils going to the early bloomers, the winners, like the author, should be satisfied with what they have already won in an unnecessarily and destructively competitive field. The rest of us are doomed to provide them support as members of the economic precariat at slave wages, if we are foolhardy enough to remain in academia. There is no honor in adding to someone else's power law distribution, and I urge the contest winners to hire Nobel Laureates and other members of their own rank to do their support work, and not add to their winnings by exploiting the unworthy persons they elbowed out. (I did earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, incidentally. This was wasted effort. When I was a toddler, apparently I impressed a child psychologist with my logic; my mother told the woman that she was an idiot for thinking that I was advanced. My experience in academia was not good--I was mostly exploited. I have decided to abandon mathematics and computer science for art.)

alanning 12y ago

Has anyone here who is gifted with this level of ability looked into or experienced a Montessori-style education? Perhaps for your children? My two young children are currently enrolled in a Montessori school and I can draw a lot of parallels between what the many gifted commenters here suggest as a better way to teach and my understanding of the Montessori philosophy. Emphasis on engendering self-directed learning, freedom to explore their interests, avoidance of intelligence labels/praise such as "you're so smart", etc.

rumcajz 12y ago

What's the point on focusing on children with high test scores? If that's what makes genius, the geniuses could -- and should -- be replaced by computers. What makes a real genius is absolute honesty, willingness to re-evaluate their core assumptions over and over again, not get deluded by ruling dogma etc. Being able to multiply five digit numbers doesn't help with that.

rumcajz 12y ago

kevinwang 12y ago

Interesting article... but what really makes a prodigy? What's the difference between a prodigy and a normal kid? Is it just a keener sense of curiosity, or a greater interest in reading? Is it neurological? Is it environmental or genetic or something else?